[To THE EDITOR OF The SPECTATOR. " ] Ste,—Stevenson is always courageous
and sympathetic. and those of us who are deaf should remember how he wrote: "Whatever happens high, brave, and amusing lives can always be lived." One has to adapt oneself to the environment, and may have to change one's interests somewhat and one's point of view. Thus in the spring one ran use the eye instead of the ear. Only in remembrance can one recall the triumph of the thrush, the love- notes of the curlew, the "drumming" of the snipe, the fluting of the redshank, Sr.: now one has to look for the greeting of the blue eye of the &ilia, and mark the first quiver of green life quicken in the dreaming larch. "The great task of happiness" is indeed rendered additionally difficult by deafness, and in the social circle, as "Grateful" and " Seventy-seven " have pointed out, one's sense of isolation is bound to be oppressive. The charm of making fresh acquaintances has to be given up, yet the ley of a long talk with an old friend by help of microphone or conversation-tube still remains. One has to keep one's sense of humour alive and to remember "Bobby" Lowe's query to his friend sitting in the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery with ear- trumpet fast at his ear, " Why quarrel with your natural advan- tages?" Out of doors, however, one may still lie able to hold one's own at golf, hunting, shooting, fishing, and motoring, sad if one is too old for violent exercise there remains "one of the purest of all pleaSures "-gardening—and I quote Stevenson again from memory:—
"Books and my food and summer rain."
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